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Beyoncé, Sony Music and others are facing a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping hit “Break My Soul,” filed by a New Orleans group that says she sampled from a Big Easy rapper who had illegally lifted lyrics from their earlier song.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (May 22) in Louisiana federal court, members of Da Showstoppaz accuse Beyoncé (Beyoncé Knowles Carter) of infringing their 2002 song “Release A Wiggle” on “Break My Soul,” which spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.
Rather than stealing their material directly, the group alleges that Beyoncé infringed their copyrights by legally sampling the 2014 song “Explode” by the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia. That track, they say, illegally borrowed several key lyrics from their song.
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“While Mrs. Carter … and others have received many accolades and substantial profits … Da Showstoppaz’s have received nothing—no acknowledgment, no credit, no remuneration of any kind,” the group’s attorneys wrote, also naming Big Freedia (Freddie Ross) as a defendant.
“Explode” was one of several high-profile samples on “Break My Soul,” which also heavily pulled from Robin S.‘s house song “Show Me Love.” After the release of the song, Big Freedia thanked “Queen Beyoncé” and said she had been “honored to be a part of this special moment.”
At the center of the new dispute is the phrase “release yo wiggle” and several related variants, which Da Showstoppaz call “unique phrases” that they coined in their song. They say Big Freedia — a well-known rapper in New Orleans’ bounce music scene — infringed their copyrights by using similar phrases in “Explode.”
“The infringing phrase ‘release yo’ wiggle’ and several other substantially similar phrases are featured prominently in the song and evenly spread out across Explode’s two-minute and forty-seven second runtime,” the group’s lawyers wrote. “Any reasonable person listening to ‘Release A Wiggle’ and ‘Explode’ would conclude that the songs are substantially similar.”
Such allegations could face long odds in court. Copyright law typically does not protect short, simple phrases, and a court could potentially dismiss the case on the grounds that Big Freedia was free to use such lyrics even if The Showstoppaz used them first.
But the group’s lawyers aren’t concerned, saying they “have a copyright to their unique and distinctive lyrics” that was clearly infringed by Big Freedia: “The coined term and phrase ‘release a/yo wiggle’ has now become closely synonymous with Big Freedia, thereby contributing to Big Freedia’s fame. However, Big Fredia did not compose or write the phrase, and Big Freedia never credited Da Showstoppaz as the source.”
According to the lawsuit, Da Showstoppaz first learned about Big Freedia’s song when they heard “Break My Soul.” They say they notified Beyoncé and others of the alleged infringement infringement last month, but that she has refused to take a license.
Reps for Beyoncé and Sony Music did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough won a court order Wednesday blocking a looming foreclosure sale of the late singer’s historic Memphis home Graceland, after her attorneys argued that the bizarre effort to sell the home was “fraudulent.”
At a hearing in Memphis court, Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins granted Keough’s request for a preliminary injunction that will block the mysterious foreclosure proceeding – initially set for Thursday – until he can rule on her case, according to court records reviewed by Billboard.
As reported by CNN, the judge said during the hearing that Keough would likely win her arguments — and that allowing the sale of the legendary mansion to go through in the meantime would cause her so-called irreparable harm.
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“The estate is considered unique under Tennessee law, and in being unique the loss of the real estate will be considered irreparable harm,” Jenkins said in the hearing.
In a case filed in Tennessee court last week, Keough alleged that the foreclosure was triggered by phony demands from a company called Naussany Investments – an entity that allegedly claims her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, borrowed $3.8 million and used the famed mansion as collateral.
The alleged loans are recorded in documents supplied by Naussany that feature Lisa Marie’s signature, but Keough’s lawyers say those records are “forgeries” and that she “did not in fact sign the documents.”
“These documents are fraudulent,” Keough’s attorneys write in their May 15 complaint, obtained by Billboard. “Lisa Marie Presley never borrowed money from Naussany Investments and never gave a deed of trust to Naussany Investments.”
Naussany (Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC) could not immediately be located for comment on Wednesday’s order. An attorney for Keough also did not return a request for comment.
When Elvis died in 1977, his daughter Lisa Marie inherited his estate, including Graceland — a tourist mecca that pulls in millions of dollars a year in revenue. Until her death last year, she served as trustee of the Promenade Trust, an entity that controls the Memphis mansion. When she passed away, Keough assumed that same role and took control of the property.
According to the lawsuit, Naussany alleges it made the multi-million dollar loan to Lisa Marie in 2018 and recorded the transaction in Florida. But Keough’s lawyers say that Naussany is “a false entity created for the purpose of defrauding the Promenade Trust,” orchestrated by a man named Kurt Naussany who has sent “numerous emails seeking to collect the purported $3.8 million debt.”
Keough’s attorneys say the evidence “strongly indicates the documents are forgeries” – most notably, that the notary who allegedly signed off on the transaction has confirmed that she did not do so. “Indeed, she confirmed she has never met Lisa Marie Presley nor notarized any document for her.”
Following Wednesday’s ruling, the case will now proceed toward more detailed litigation over the Keough’s allegations, and eventually toward a final ruling.
“War!” a singer once shouted. “What is it good for?” Well, that depends. In the music business, what can seem like grand ideological conflicts are usually just messy public negotiations over money. That doesn’t mean they’re not brutal, though. And sometimes the amounts at stake turn out to be very much worth fighting over.
The latest industry imbroglio is the National Music Publishers Association’s conflict with Spotify — call it the Battle of the Bundle — which could be worth about $150 million next year. On March 1, Spotify added access to audiobooks to its standard subscription to create a product that it says qualifies as a bundle under the terms of its 2022 legal settlement of the Phonorecords IV rate-setting procedure with the NMPA. Then, as the settlement says it can do, it allocates part of the subscription cost to the audiobook piece of the bundle in order to qualify for a lower payment to publishers.
Whether or not Spotify has a legitimate bundle, it sure has chutzpah — converting all of its U.S. subscribers to bundle customers is a bold move. Now it also has a war on its hands. Already, the NMPA has sent the company a cease and desist for alleged unlicensed content and the allied Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) filed a lawsuit about the bundling.
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This is only the response to the attack, though. By trying to cut payments to publishers, Spotify essentially attacked the NMPA, with which the streaming services settled, as well as its president and CEO David Israelite, who actually seems to enjoy this kind of combat. Just to be clear, I don’t think that Israelite literally loves fighting, but I do think he gets a certain satisfaction out of being good at it — he was a champion college debater and he’s a talented amateur poker player. He’s the kind of opponent who thinks strategically, sees several moves ahead and fights on a number of fronts at once.
The obvious fight will be the lawsuit filed by the MLC, which is likely to be long and expensive — think of it as a long slog of a ground war. The expense of that will be borne by the streaming services, though, since they fund the MLC’s operations under the provisions of the Music Modernization Act. But Israelite will attack on other fronts as well. The cease-and-desist letter marks the beginning of probing attacks, each one small. Spotify now licenses the works it uses but are there a few hundred uses of some works that might have slipped through the cracks? At a maximum of $150,000 per work in statutory damages for willful infringement, those oversights add up fast. Just as important, a slowdown in licensing for other uses, including video, could keep Spotify from moving forward with some of its plans to compete with Apple and Amazon.
Israelite will also move forward with what one might call sanctions, by trying to organize different parts of the music business against Spotify, much as Universal Music Group did with TikTok. Most years, the June NMPA Annual Meeting includes the music business version of Two Minutes Hate for an online company that’s not paying or underpaying rightsholders. That’s in less than a month. It’s hard to know how successful this will be, but it seems reasonable to assume that Spotify is going to have a much harder time booking acts to play its party during next year’s Grammy Week.
Israelite has also said he plans to take the fight to Capitol Hill with a legislative proposal to give publishers and songwriters more negotiating power. (If war is just the continuation of policy by other means, as Carl von Clausewitz has it, can’t the reverse also be true?) The odds of passing this legislation soon don’t seem all that high — right now the odds of passing any legislation soon don’t seem all that high — and if publishers and songwriters had the power to make it happen, they would have been trying already. But it starts a conversation that the NMPA wants to start, and it opens a front where the NMPA can fight at an advantage, partly because Israelite, a former Hill staffer, would fight on his home turf. Could the NMPA could get a hearing on the topic of songwriter pay that would embarrass Spotify? The company could argue that it needs margin relief, and it does, but how would that look on TV?
If this sounds like an incredibly elaborate and expensive way to figure out the definition of a bundle, you’re missing the point. Because it is, but also because no one cares. The point, for the NMPA, is to force Spotify to concede, through some combination of litigation, legislation and PR. Strong spotlights create a harsh glare. From Spotify’s perspective, looking for copyright infringement that fell through the cracks might seem like an aggressively-literal reading of the law. But isn’t an automatic bundle aggravatingly literal in its own right?
There’s also a theory that Israelite needs to get music publishers out of a situation he got them into, since he backed the 2022 settlement that allowed for bundles, but this is unfair. Under the decision in the rate-setting case before this, Phonorecords III, bundles were allowed and could be accounted for by subtracting the value of one from the total price, then using the remainder to calculate royalties. Under the Phonorecords IV settlement, bundles must be accounted for proportionally, which is far from ideal but a bit better. Obviously, Israelite and the NMPA thought they could get a better deal by settling the case than fighting it out in court, at great expense, and the NMPA board approved it. Arguably, they’d have ended up fighting either way.
That brings up another question: Phonorecords IV only covers the period through the end of 2027. Before that, both sides will go back to rate court, each more inclined to fight and less apt to settle. Whatever happens, the publishers will lose predictability and Spotify will look bad, especially compared to its rival streaming services. There could be a long, grinding Cold War that really will be good for nothing.
Singer-songwriter Vincent Mason, known for his viral hit “Hell Is a Dance Floor,” has signed a label deal with Interscope Records/UMG Nashville/Music Soup, the companies tell Billboard. Mason has been releasing music via Music Soup since his first release, so the deal marks a continuation of his work with that company. The Georgia native’s debut […]
An Earth, Wind & Fire tribute act will pay the legendary R&B group $750,000 in damages for using its trademarked name in ways that a federal judge called “deceptive and misleading.”
The payment, announced in a court filing Tuesday, will effectively end a year-long lawsuit in which the band alleged that the tribute act — “Earth, Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion” – infringed the trademark rights to the famous name by suggesting it was the real thing.
Earlier this year, the federal judge overseeing the case sided with Earth, Wind & Fire, ruling that the tribute act’s conduct had been “deceptive and misleading.” A trial had been scheduled to figure out how much Legacy Reunion would need to pay, but the two sides reached an undisclosed settlement on that question last week.
In Tuesday’s filing, the judge disclosed the total that Legacy Reunion had agreed to pay – $750,000, plus interest — a rare step following settlements, which are typically kept private. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
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Earth, Wind & Fire has continued to tour since founder Maurice White died in 2016, led by longtime members Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and White’s brother, Verdine White. The band operates under a license from an entity called Earth Wind & Fire IP, a holding company controlled by Maurice White’s sons that formally owns the rights to the name.
Last year, that company filed the current lawsuit, accusing Legacy Reunion of trying to trick consumers into thinking it was the real Earth, Wind & Fire. Though it called itself a “Reunion,” the lawsuit said the tribute band contained only a few “side musicians” who had briefly played with Earth, Wind & Fire many years ago.
“Defendants did this to benefit from the commercial magnetism and immense goodwill the public has for plaintiff’s ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ marks and logos, thereby misleading consumers and selling more tickets at higher prices,” the group’s lawyers wrote at the time.
Tribute acts — groups that exclusively cover the music of a particular band — are legally allowed to operate, and they often adopt names that allude to the original. But they must make clear that they are only a tribute band, and they can get into legal hot water if they make it appear that they are affiliated with or endorsed by the original.
Ruling on the case last month, Judge Federico A. Moreno said the evidence pointed “overwhelmingly” in the band’s favor. In particular, the judge cited angry social media posts and emails from fans who attended the “Reunion” shows because they thought it was the original band — proof of the kind of “actual confusion” that’s crucial evidence in a trademark lawsuit.
“It is not a far cry to think that an average consumer looking for an Earth, Wind & Fire concert would believe that they could acquire that experience from either plaintiff or defendants,” the judge wrote.
Following Tuesday’s order, the only remaining issue in the case is an injuction permanently banning Legacy Reunion from infringing the name. That issue will be subject to future rulings clarifying exactly what it will cover.
Recently, Spotify has reclassified its premium individual, duo and family subscription services as “bundled subscription services” in an ill-informed attempt to deprive songwriters and music publishers of their rightfully earned U.S. mechanical royalties. As a result, the agreed-upon revenue share rate for Spotify premium, currently 15.2%, may effectively be reduced to less than 12%, depending upon a number of factors. Losses to songwriters and publishers, estimated by Billboard to be $150 million on an annualized basis, will undoubtedly increase over time as subscription revenue and users grow.
Let me say straight away that this column is not intended to embarrass or disparage Spotify in any way. Quite the opposite: This is a respectful appeal to the company, specifically its senior leadership team, to do the right thing by songwriters, regardless of what strategies they appear to believe are legally permissible.
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Spotify has an unfortunate and documented history of punching down at songwriters and music publishers. In just the last few years, this includes appealing the Phonorecords III decision, which reasonably raised the mechanical royalty rate from 10.5% to 15.1% of revenue over a five-year period (while also providing discounted terms for family and student accounts that are beneficial to Spotify and other music services). Almost immediately after serving notice of its intention to appeal Phonorecords III, Spotify moved to retroactively implement the Copyright Royalty Board’s final pre-appeal decision and clawed back a multi-million-dollar credit from songwriters and music publishers throughout 2019. The appeal and remand process lasted for many years, ultimately delaying the payment of a large amount of mechanical royalties, including those earned during the hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic, until February 2024. And finally, in late 2021, Spotify proposed statutory rates for 2023-2027 that the NMPA referred to as the “lowest royalty rates in history.”
While the settlement of Phonorecords IV in 2022 was celebrated by both streaming services and music publishers, Spotify and other DSPs had especially good reason to rejoice. The settlement provides that revenue share rates minimally increase from the prior rate of 15.1% to 15.35% over a five-year period while also providing for discounts related to not only family and student accounts but also Spotify duo —subscription tiers that are meaningful to Spotify given the strong growth of family and duo plans, as the company has noted in earnings reports. The settlement also provides specific terms for DSPs that choose to bundle a qualifying music subscription service with other products and services.
It’s difficult to imagine why Spotify could have any degree of buyer’s remorse concerning the Phonorecords IV settlement or deliberately attempt to manipulate its terms given how clearly reasonable and fair it is. Spotify presumably entered into the settlement with the full knowledge and acceptance that it was agreeing to pay the revenue share rates of 15.1% to 15.35% upon a properly undiluted revenue base, as it had been doing until March 2024.
But Spotify has again devalued the contributions of songwriters to its platform, a move that has been described by rights and advocacy organizations as “cynical,” “potentially unlawful,” “greedy” and “offensive.”
I’ve been asked a lot in recent weeks why Spotify is doing this. The answer, other than perhaps “because they believe they can,” is simple. I believe that Spotify is unjustly attempting to reduce the amounts it pays to songwriters and music publishers in order to (1) effectively use the displaced royalties to offset the costs of running its audiobook business and (2) improve its margins.
Spotify’s reframing of the vast majority of its subscription services as bundled subscription services is a work of fiction. It has done so, in part, by launching a standalone audiobooks access tier that does not appear commercially attractive to users and was launched, at least to an extent, to support its “bundling” strategy. As noted in the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s (the MLC) legal complaint against Spotify, the audiobooks access tier is largely hidden from view on Spotify’s website on a page where the primary purpose is to steer subscribers to premium, not audiobooks access.
The audiobooks access tier is also only available in the United States, the only country to which the Phonorecords IV settlement and accompanying statutory framework applies, and is notably not available in any other country where audiobooks are available in premium. Spotify’s intent is rather obvious on its face, but to think that the availability of the audiobooks access tier as implemented is something of a silver bullet that qualifies it to reclassify its premium individual, family, and duo tiers as a bundled subscription service is a true mark of acting in bad faith. To do so when Spotify is reportedly on the cusp of rightfully raising prices in the United States is all the more insulting.
In the wake of the ire directed at Spotify from songwriters and the music publishing community in recent weeks, the company has issued statements to Billboard and other media.
First, Spotify has stated that it is simply doing what other services have done with bundled products. In my opinion, this is misleading. The Spotify competitors that have availed themselves of bundle reporting methods have done so for products that are bona fide bundles consisting of individually available services and products that hold a clear commercial value, and to which users actively elect to subscribe. Spotify has even done this itself for bundled products on a more limited basis, in the manner actually intended by the Phonorecords IV settlement and its predecessors. But as the MLC’s legal filing against Spotify notes, anyone who subscribed to Spotify premium prior to November 8, 2023, did not elect to receive audiobooks content or functionality. Many premium users have not utilized audiobooks even once; and, as of this writing, a non-student Spotify subscription without audiobooks does not even exist.
Spotify has also been quick to point out that music publishers “agreed to and celebrated” the Phonorecords IV settlement. I can assure readers there is no world in which the music publishing community truly believed that it was agreeing to bundling provisions in the manner in which they are being abused by Spotify to drastically reduce its payments to songwriters and music publishers. At minimum, Spotify’s actions clearly violate the spirit of the agreement, and to say otherwise is blatantly dishonest. To the extent Spotify may believe it has outsmarted songwriters and music publishers, there should be no pride in ownership.
Finally, Spotify has stated that it “paid a record amount to publishers and societies in 2023 and is on track to pay out an even larger amount in 2024,” which presumably refers to Spotify’s global rather than U.S. domestic spend on music publishing royalties. This may be true given Spotify’s growth trajectory, which as of its most recent reporting was up 20% year-over-year in revenue and up 14% in premium subscribers. However, it is wholly irrelevant and a deflection from the issue. Simply paying more from one year to the next does not atone for the grave offense at hand. The amount of royalties paid is not the only pertinent metric.
Spotify has repeatedly stated its desire to become a more efficient and profitable company. I applaud that. Spotify operating profitably is good for the music business — including songwriters and music publishers. And Spotify is welcome to spread its wings and invest in new areas of business such as podcasts and audiobooks. But let’s be clear: The royalties that Spotify pays to songwriters and music publishers (and other music rightsholders including record labels) are not preventing it from becoming or remaining profitable.
Spotify has said on multiple occasions, including during its 2022 investor day presentation, that it has chosen to prioritize growth over profitability and has done so deliberately and willingly. Its music gross margin has operated at strong numbers and improved over time, in part thanks to its marketplace initiatives, but overall gross margin has been dragged down by investments the company has made in the podcast space. Not all of those investments, including content deals and acquisitions of other companies, have produced positive results, as is well documented in various media, and Spotify has since pivoted to operate more efficiently and better ensure that its costs do not grow quicker than its revenue.
The royalties Spotify pays to songwriters and music publishers are not the problem, nor are the royalties it pays to others. Spotify receives tremendous value in exchange for the mechanical and other royalties that it pays for musical works, and songwriters should not be treated by Spotify as a drag on its margins. To pay slightly north of 15% of revenue for songwriters’ creative output is a gift, and there is absolutely no reason for Spotify to sneak around corners to dilute songwriters’ income. It is beyond the pale, even relative to actions that Spotify has taken against songwriters and publishers in recent years.
I love Spotify and have been a user since the very beginning. But I value the songs upon which it has built its entire business even more. Spotify is a house built by songwriters. In the modern listening environment, which heavily depends upon personalization, recommendations and playlists, songs and songwriters are an even more crucial part of the infrastructure and the value conveyed to consumers who pay Spotify subscription fees.
I’ve often said that compensating songwriters in accordance with the value that they bring to music streaming platforms is not only good business but also good for business. Spotify’s relationship with songwriters and publishers, whether it realizes it or not, is mission-critical and not just about maintaining positive sentiment. Given the global stature of Spotify and the company’s interest in various content types including podcasts, music videos and lyrics, returning its relationship with songwriters and publishers to a respectful position is important to its future. Unfortunately, Spotify’s relationship with the songwriter and music publishing communities that it has built its business upon is now more fraught and damaged than ever. Trust has been almost entirely eroded. That cannot merely be chalked up to, as Spotify stated during its most recent earnings call, “natural tensions between suppliers and distributors.” But it may not be too late to fix things.
Here is my genuine and respectful appeal to Spotify, and it’s not a big ask: Please voluntarily honor the Phonorecords IV settlement on the intended terms that you know fully well were agreed to and promptly reverse course on your misguided attempts to reduce U.S. mechanical royalties in this manner. Songwriters and the broader music publishing community will thank you. If this is too much to ask, I believe the songwriting community will never want to hear another word from Spotify about, to use the company’s own words, “giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art.”
Adam Parness was the global head of music publishing at Spotify from 2017 to 2019. He currently operates Adam Parness Music Consulting and serves as a highly trusted and sought after strategic advisor to numerous music rightsholders, notably in the music publishing space, as well as popular global brands, technology-based creative services companies and firms investing in music and technology.
Veteran venues executive Tim Worton is leaving the live entertainment industry for a new career path.
Worton will step away from ASM Global at year’s end, at which time he will enter 12 months’ full-time studies at Moore Theological College in Sydney. When completed, Worton is keen to work in a pastoral, chaplaincy or ministry role.
Sydney-based Worton has logged 33 years in the entertainment business, including 25 years with ASM Global (previously AEG Ogden). For the past 19 years, he has served as the venues and event management specialist’s group director of arenas for APAC.
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“Tim has been a great ambassador for our organization. He has made an admirable and life changing decision to follow his faith and we applaud his decision and wish him well,” comments ASM Global (APAC) chairman and CEO Harvey Lister.
“Tim’s leadership and executive management of the arena portfolio is demonstrated by the continued growth of the Group’s arenas through innovation and ongoing development of entertainment content for audiences.”
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The announcement of Worton’s career pivot was made during the 31st Asia Pacific Venue Industry Congress held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC). According to organizers, this year’s edition welcomes 554 registered attendees, a new record, for a program running across 23 sessions and featuring 79 speakers.
During the VMA Awards on Tuesday night (May 21), celebrating the final evening of the confab, Worton was presented with the trade body’s 12th honorary lifetime membership.
Worton joined the VMA as a member in 1994, a year after the establishment of the association, and served on its board from 1997-2003, and was the association’s president during the period from January 2001 to May 2003. In 2022, the VMA’s council created an category in his honor, the Tim Worton Award for excellence in the area of education, becoming its first recipient.
Reflecting on his career, Worton says, “helping to ensure there is plenty of live content and the company’s arena network is operationally and financially successful is a key part of my role. What I have loved most about my career is supporting and mentoring colleagues, helping to create opportunities for future development.”
The 2024 Congress marked Worton’s 30th consecutive, and final, in attendance.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the hip-hop mogul sexually assaulted her in a recording studio bathroom in 2003.
According to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York by attorneys Michelle Caiola and Jonathan Goldhirsch, Crystal McKinney claims she met Combs at a Men’s Fashion Week dinner in Manhattan on the invite of a fashion designer she knew. While attending the dinner, during which she alleges that Combs came onto her “in a sexually suggestive manner,” she says he invited her to hang out at his recording studio.
After arriving at the studio, where McKinney says several other men were present, she claims she was given alcohol and a marijuana joint that she later came to believe was laced “with a narcotic or other intoxicating substance.” She says Combs then led her to a bathroom, where he began kissing her without her consent before shoving her head in his crotch and forcing her to perform oral sex over her protests.
McKinney, who was then working as a professional model, claims that she later “awakened in shock” to find herself in a taxi heading back to the apartment of the designer who had invited her to the dinner. At this point, she “realized that she had been sexually assaulted by Combs,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit adds that following the alleged assault, McKinney’s “modeling opportunities quickly began to dwindle and then evaporated entirely” after Combs allegedly “blackballed” her in the industry. After falling into “a tailspin of anxiety and depression,” she claims she attempted suicide in 2004 and later fell into drug and alcohol addiction to cope with the trauma of the alleged assault.
The new lawsuit was filed under the NYC Gender Motivated Violence Act, which created a two-year lookback window beginning in March 2023 that allows survivors of gender-motivated violence to sue their abusers for alleged incidents that occurred outside the statute of limitations.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Combs’ label Bad Boy Records, its parent company Universal Music Group and Combs’ clothing company Sean John Clothing, all of which McKinney claims “enabled” the alleged assault by “actively maintaining and employing Combs in a position of power” despite the fact that they allegedly “knew or should have known that Combs posed a risk of sexual assault.”
McKinney is asking for damages for mental and emotional injury, distress, pain and suffering and injury to her reputation as well as punitive damages, among other relief.
Representatives for Combs, Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean John Clothing and Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Tuesday’s complaint marks the sixth sexual misconduct lawsuit to have been filed against Combs over the past several months. The torrent of lawsuits was kicked off by a November 2023 complaint filed by his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who alleged repeated abuse by the mogul over the course of more than a decade.
Though Ventura’s lawsuit was settled just one day later, a 2016 security video published by CNN on Friday (May 17) showed Combs physically assaulting Ventura in a hotel hallway. Though Combs denied all of Ventura’s initial allegations, in the wake of the video’s release he issued an apology calling his behavior in the clip “inexcusable.” L.A. District Attorney George Gascón later released a statement saying that Combs could not be prosecuted over the assault due to the statute of limitations.
Combs has strongly denied all allegations of sexual assault made against him. On Dec. 6, he released a statement that read: “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
In November, Combs stepped down as chairman of his digital media company Revolt before reportedly selling his stake in the company in March. Also in March, federal agents conducted raids of Combs’ L.A. and Miami homes “in connection” with a federal sex trafficking investigation, according to CNN.
Podcast and music streaming company LiveOne is being sued for allegedly “openly and illegally operating a commercial office, business event center, professional podcast interview studio, and music recording studio” out of a 6,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills, according to a complaint filed May 10 by the property’s next-door neighbors.
Entertainment attorney Michael Kibler and his wife Ann Kibler allege LiveOne has been a “nuisance” since it moved to take over the lease for the house in 2022, leading to “noise at all hours of the day and night, increased foot and car traffic associated with commercial operations, and parking overflow, from the day-to-day commercial activity at the residence,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by Kibler’s law partner John Fowler.
The house is located in the famed Beverly Hills Flats neighborhood, which has long struggled to balance the privacy and safety needs of its wealthy residents with the hustle and bustle of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills’ glitzy Golden Triangle corridor.
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According to the complaint, the Beverly Hills home now being used by LiveOne had been privately held and occupied by a long-time owner who passed away in 2021. The property, which includes, a pool, a swimming lap lane and a guest house, was then purchased by Siamak Khakshooy and Tanaz Koshki for $6.9 million in October 2021 and rented the following December to The Revels Group, which manages artists including rapper G-Eazy.
That’s when the problems for the Kibler family began, according to the lawsuit. The Revels Group used the space as its “creative compound,” the lawsuit reads, operating music studios on the property and promoting “all-night music industry events hosted by professional DJs” on a “nightclub-quality sound system in the backyard.” After receiving multiple complaints about the house, Beverly Hills’ Code Enforcement department launched an investigation in September 2022 and ordered the company to “permanently terminate all operations,” which led to The Revels Group not renewing its lease. After The Revels Group moved out in December 2022, LiveOne moved in around March 2023.
Since taking over the property, LiveOne “has operated its music and entertainment company by engaging in recording studio activities, hosting a pre-Grammy night party on February 3, 2024, and holding other music entertainment events,” the lawsuit reads.
The Kiblers have hired private investigators to surveil the house and issue lengthy reports identifying LiveOne staffers as they enter and exit the property, even running license plate checks on cars parked near the house to determine the identities of the drivers, according to the lawsuit. Besides the occasional late-night party, the Kibler’s biggest complaint is the “large quantities of trash overflowing from the City trash and recycling bins in the alley behind The LiveOne House.”
The Kiblers are suing LiveOne and the property’s owners for violating local zoning laws, charging both with public and private nuisance, as well as infliction of emotional distress. The Kiblers are asking a judge to order LiveOne to cease all business at the house and pay a $10,000 fine for each day it operates at the house.
Billboard reached out to LiveOne for comment but did not receive a response.
A new venue in Brooklyn is set to bring large-scale cultural events to an industrial area of the city.
Announced Tuesday (May 21), Brooklyn Storehouse is a 104,000-square-foot warehouse that’s been taken over as a venue for culture-spanning programming involving fashion, art, music and more — with an emphasis on electronic events.
Brooklyn Storehouse is a partnership between two longstanding independent promoters: New York City‘s TCE Presents, the parent company of event producer Teksupport, which was founded by Rob Toma and has produced electronic music events in pop-up (and often industrial) spaces around the city since 2010, and Broadwick Live. Founded by Simeon Aldred in 2010, Broadwick Live is a U.K. live events company that operates 30 venues and event spaces including Drumsheds and the former Printworks London. Housed in a former Ikea and a converted newspaper printing facility, respectively, Drumsheds and the now-defunct Printworks London fit squarely into Broadwick Live’s focus on repurposing industrial buildings.
Together, TCE Presents and Broadwick Live have leased the Brooklyn Storehouse from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with the warehouse space existing amid a 300-acre industrial waterfront complex. The building was first used for shipbuilding during World War I and II, and its structure maintains its original industrial aesthetic. Much of the Navy Yard is currently being developed for industrial use by clean energy and climate solutions companies. As such, it’s unlikely that the area will be built out with housing units, allowing Brooklyn Storehouse more leeway when producing live (and often late-night) events.
“One of the problems we have in the U.K. is that nearly every space we open, two years later someone’s building condos right on our back door, and it becomes a constant pressure,” says Aldred. “One of the things that’s very attractive about the Navy Yard is that it’s protected for jobs, and it’s going to be like that for a long time.”
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The founders — who launched the endeavor with “50/50 our own money,” says Aldred — soft-launched Brooklyn Storehouse last September with a fashion show by Ralph Lauren. The venue can host a maximum of 7,000 people.
Brooklyn Storehouse
Phillip Reed
The partnership brings Toma and his team’s strengths— “promotions, marketing, bookings, licensing, opening doors, breaking down operations, community outreach” says Toma — along with the company’s ability to, Aldred says “immediately supercharge this [space] with 30 to 40 shows.” Over the next few months, Brooklyn Storehouse is set to host performances from Justice, Charlotte de Witte, Dom Dolla, John Summit, Swedish House Mafia, Alesso, James Hype and Meduza and four parties from Ibiza-based party brand CircoLoco later this year.
Toma adds that a lot of those artists are “coming to us because we don’t only focus on selling tickets on the dance floor. They know the spaces we do are involved with fashion [and other cultural programming], and they know this is that.” Toma also says artists are drawn to performing shows in special locations, with Brooklyn Storehouse thus offering “an advantage over our competitors.”
Toma adds that the key to making the space work is “the balance of not only having programming in terms of cold hard tickets. It’s more about figuring out how to position it in a way where we’re also bringing in several different industries, from film to fashion.” The founders hope it can be a space where orchestras, musicians and other groups can set up extended creative residencies. It will be also used for corporate gatherings.
Brooklyn Storehouse is the first of several venues Broadwick Live and TCE Presents plan to operate in the United States, with the partners also currently looking at former industrial spaces in Boston, Miami, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“In America at the moment we’ve got 25 to 30 [conversations ongoing],” says Aldred. “Five to 10 of those are in the money part of the talk, so they’re becoming quite real.”
In these industrial spaces, the partners see a particularly timely expansion opportunity, with Aldred predicting that many such facilities will open up as the power grid converts to clean energy.
“These spaces were used for kind of dirty work,” he says. “In the next 5 to 10 years, you’re gonna see them coming offline from being dirty and developers not knowing what to do with them. You’re not going to bulldoze a hundred-year-old power station with amazing architecture. It’s not easy to put retail in them. It’s not easy to put housing into them.”
But as is the hope with Brooklyn Storehouse, parties, fashion shows and DJ sets will be just the right fit.